Knapp: A new class of diva athletes for summer

Gwen Knapp

Published
4:00 am PDT, Thursday, July 30, 2009

Over the past few weeks, the premier divas of the sports world have not come from a lineup of the usual suspects. Home-run hitters haven't done anything outrageous lately. Wide receivers have the summer off. Nike finally surrendered the video of a collegian dunking on LeBron James.

David Beckham was a strong contender, but, instead, two cyclists and a swimming coach nabbed the honors.

Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong have become a Kobe-Shaq sequel, without any of the subtlety of the original. Michael Phelps' coach, Bob Bowman, effectively blamed an opponent's swimsuit for Phelps' first major defeat in four years, then threatened to boycott international competition over the technological shenanigans, which Phelps and his Speedo sponsors helped instigate last year.

Because they're in sports that show up on our radar only sporadically, these guys won't take nearly as much flak as a second-option receiver who acted out in the heat of a playoff game. (See: Anquan Boldin, Cardinals sidelines in January.) But given that both Armstrong and Phelps have been elevated to icon status, and tried to bring their sports to new levels of acclaim, the behavior merits serious attention.

The Contador-Armstrong feud turned richly comical by the end of the Tour de France, even though the tension on their Astana team was entirely predictable. A Tour de France team with more than one potential leader invites second-guessing and backstabbing. With Armstrong as a co-contender, rather than in the clear lead role, everyone will have to sleep with one eye open. Astana effectively asked two kings to serve each other, and the result - aside from a first and third place - was an "Animal House" food fight.

Contador made foolish errors that undermined his team and even his own chances of winning the Tour, but he took the yellow jersey with some preternatural mountain rides. Yet he seemed to believe that all he overcame was a lack of support from his team, and from Armstrong in particular.

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As soon as he returned to Spain after winning his second Tour in three years, Contador declared that he had "zero" relationship with Armstrong, the winner of seven consecutive yellow jerseys, and did not respect him personally. "The days in the hotel were harder than those on the road," he said after riding 2,150 miles in what is widely considered the most grueling event in sports.

Because he had won the race, did Contador really have to take the tacky shots at Armstrong, adding them to his classless celebratory gesture of chest-thumping and miming a pistol shot? He clearly wanted the diva title, too, and he had to battle Armstrong for it.

The elder king had criticized the younger in public before and during the race, and he continues to do so via Twitter. Near the end of the Tour, Armstrong announced that he would be forming a new team sponsored by Radio Shack next year. Imagine an NBA player, after Game 2 of the Finals, saying that he had cut a deal to start an expansion team and play for it the following season. He'd never live that down.

Alex Rodriguez opted out of his contact during the World Series, and it didn't matter that his agent, not he, went public with the plan nor that A-Rod wasn't playing in the World Series. The disrespect of not waiting tainted him.

Armstrong doesn't have to meet the same standards. Neither does Phelps. They have to meet different ones. The expectations of purity are much higher. A football player caught with growth hormone draws a yawn; if Armstrong were caught with a performance enhancer, he'd be ruined. Phelps indulged in a bong hit, and the disappointment reverberated throughout an audience that clings to false ideals of Olympic valor and purity.

The sportsmanship deficit at the world championships in Rome this week was far more relevant to his public identity. Bowman said Phelps might swim only in local meets if the governing body of aquatics, FINA, didn't move up its April deadline for banning high-tech suits. Phelps, though gracious about his 200 freestyle loss to German Paul Biedermann, said he followed whatever schedule his coach dictated.

The objections to Biedermann's suit are valid, just as many of Armstrong's criticisms of Contador hit the mark. But complaining after the loss made no sense. Bowman and Phelps knew the effects of the Arena suit before Phelps took his first stroke in the race. If Phelps had won anyway, they wouldn't have cared, even though records belonging to other swimmers have been trashed by the technology. Waiting until he lost to speak up wasn't principled, it was temperamental.

Still, the cyclists got to the diva crown first, and they did it on talent alone, without any special equipment.